Introduction

Overweight and obesity in the adolescent population are on the rise, it is thus necessary to identify interventions to prevent and manage these conditions in the youth group.

Objective

To show the evidence found about the characteristics of the interventions published in indexed scientific journals on prevention and management of overweight and obesity, nutrition and physical activity, so that they are used in decision-making of policies and programs for the promotion and prevention of this health condition.

Materials and Methods

A systematic review of qualitative and quantitative studies (ranging from experimental to descriptive, including both systematic reviews and meta-analyzes) published in 2005-2017 was performed by means of the PubMed and ScienceDirect databases, the Ovid and SciELO virtual libraries, and the Cochrane library reviews.

Results

There is great variety in the design and implementation of interventions concerning components, theories, scenarios, evaluation of the effects, dosage, timing and monitoring that impact nutritional habits, physical activity, self-efficacy and the body mass index (BMI) of the studied population.

Discussion

The effectiveness of interventions varies depending on the components and accuracy of implementation; consequently, this must be reviewed in the light of the best effects that have been found.

Conclusions

47 studies met the inclusion criteria. Interventions will be strengthened with the use of a theory that guides and supports the findings to provide greater and better results. The components of interventions include: duration, dosage, intensity of intervention, response and monitoring. Adolescents prefer participatory and interactive methodologies; however, there is still no specific and clearly defined intervention that could be standardized to address this health issue.

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